


I Lied

by EternallyEC



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, College AU, F/F, Fluff, Her Name is Root, Humor, Psychology, Root is a little shit, Root is a troll, Troll!Root, study buddies with benefits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21868543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternallyEC/pseuds/EternallyEC
Summary: Prompt based: I take my grades very seriously and you’re the lazy asshole who asks a ton of off-topic questions to distract the professor and I might be a foot shorter than you but I swear to god I’ll fight you AUAlternatively titled: Study Buddies With Benefits
Relationships: Root/Sameen Shaw
Comments: 5
Kudos: 84





	I Lied

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So, I was recently reading a 211 chapter collection of soulmate AUs (they're my favorite) when I found a list of prompts in the comments of one chapter. This was one. Apparently, credit for the prompt goes to jonahryan, so thanks! 
> 
> This may continue because while it just started out as being a bit of fun since We're Not Strangers is a bit on the heavier side and I needed a break, I fell head over heels for this little universe and Troll/Little Shit Root is my absolute favorite. Let me know if that's something you'd like to see!

Sameen Shaw prided herself on her grades.

She’d known that she wanted to be a doctor since she was 15 years old and spending her every free hour in the hospital as the doctors and nurses worked round the clock to help Mâmân beat the cancer they’d discovered late into stage 2. She’d admired the way they worked and they were always willing to discuss things with an uncharacteristically curious Sameen when they came in to check on her mother and had a spare moment.

She’d learned a lot about being a doctor and even a nurse, although she knew she wanted to be more hands-on than the latter. It was a difficult, challenging job that helped people and she continued to research when her mother went into remission and no longer had to go to the hospital, finding the idea intriguing.

She’d always liked a challenge.

Part of being a doctor, of course, was getting into med school and she knew she needed impeccable grades to do that. Luckily for her, she’d always prided herself on her schoolwork and most of it came easily enough to her, even in the more difficult of her college courses.

In her second year of college, she’d chosen to take psychology as her prerequisite, not wanting to deal with the headache she could tell sociology would be. Unfortunately for her, she soon found out that psychology wasn’t much better despite what she’d thought during her initial research.

It was only the third class in the semester and while she still had weeks to drop the class if needed, Sameen had never been a quitter and she bristled at the idea of doing so. No, she could get this and she _would_ , she told herself sternly as she dropped into her seat and arranged her supplies neatly on her desk.

She growled when a tall brunette suddenly sat down in front of her, blocking her view of the dry erase board she needed to copy notes from. Leaning forward, she poked the back of her neck with the sharp end of her pencil and hissed, “Do you mind?”

The brunette turned around with an amused smile and okay, so she was hot, didn’t mean Shaw was any less pissed. “Sorry, sweetie, am I blocking your view?” she smirked, making no move to get up. “You could always come sit beside me if you’d like.”

Shaw rolled her eyes at the blatant flirting and shot the girl her most withering glare, disappointed and almost impressed when she didn’t even react. “Could you just move? And _don’t_ call me sweetie.”

“I’ll move if you tell me your name,” she replied, her smile widening until it looked almost feral and okay, _that_ was definitely hot.

Shaw sighed as the professor walked in, realizing that she didn’t have many options if she wanted the girl to move before class officially started. “Sameen.”

“Nice to meet you, Sameen. You can call me Root,” she grinned, turning back around as the professor started speaking.

“What the hell? You said you’d move!” Shaw hissed, keeping her voice down.

Root turned back around and blinked her eyes at her—was that supposed to be a _wink—_ before whispering, “I lied,” and turning back around.

Shaw was furious as she moved a couple of seats over and she spent the class spending equal time between taking notes and glaring daggers at the back of Root’s head, determined to make her pay.

~ ~ ~

Although Root had only chosen the psychology course for an easy A, it had soon become her favorite class. And if she had started to purposely derail the classes in an effort to amuse herself by infuriating the reason why, well, who could blame her? Sameen was particularly lovely when she was angry and Root _loved_ being both the cause of her anger and the recipient of the delightfully furious glares as a result. Besides, it wasn’t as though she couldn’t easily change her grades on the ridiculously easy to hack website most professors used for keeping track of such things.

For some reason, Sameen had never changed seats—a matter of pride and stubbornness, if Root had to guess, and Root certainly had no plans to move away from her either. She’d taken the liberty of looking up Sameen after their first encounter and what she’d found on her student profile had only intrigued her further. Sameen Shaw was pre-med, had been in an impressive number of fights during her formative years that hadn’t stopped her from achieving a 4.0 GPA and the valedictorian spot at her high school, and she had quite an interesting array of personal comments from teachers within her permanent record.

But what Root had found most intriguing were the files coming from school counselors Sameen had been forced to see after her father’s death and each fight she’d been in (so naturally, there were quite a few reports to read through). A more scrupulous person probably wouldn’t have read those; but then, Root was anything but. They were all consistent, saying more or less the thing: ‘Sameen doesn’t react to things the way other children do. She doesn’t seem to feel the emotions the rest of us do or feel compelled to fake them.’

Most of the counselors ended up at the same conclusion: there was something broken in Sameen, although none phrased it quite that way. She seemed to only feel anger and let it rush her into violence with an alarming propensity that had only seemed to slow around the time she’d turned 15 and her mother had been diagnosed with cancer.

The last counselor Sameen had seen had been stumped, suggesting that perhaps the concept of losing her mother had ‘tamed’ her anger, but Root just rolled her eyes at that. You had to have great grades and several recommendations if you wanted to get into med school, so she’d be willing to bet her favorite laptop (the one thing she could be said to be sentimental about) that had been the time that Sameen had decided she wanted to be a doctor.

And she vehemently disagreed with the idea that Sameen was ‘broken’ just because she was a little different. To Root, it was just further proof that psychology was vastly overrated, and it may have fueled her decision to mess with Sameen by disrupting class just a tiny bit more.

Today, the discussion was on nature versus nature and Root couldn’t help but smirk as she heard the sound of Sameen settling into her seat behind her. Turning around, she blew her a kiss and grinned when Sameen fixed her with her fiercest glare and pretended to retch. It was a familiar routine by this point; Root would blatantly flirt with her in some manner or another and Sameen would pretend to be revolted by it. It was part of their charm, Root thought with a happy sigh that made Sameen roll her eyes again.

Just then, the professor walked in and Root returned her attention to the front. No sooner had he started to speak than her hand was in the air, a loud, angry huff coming from behind her and making her smile widen.

“Ms. Groves, please--” Professor Finch sighed despairingly, leaning against his desk with his service dog at his side.

“Today’s nature versus nurture, right?” Root interrupted, not waiting for him to answer. “But why do people always assume that it’s one or the other instead of a combination? Everyone is born with the capacity to do terrible things, but maybe some of us are more predisposed to follow that instinct than others and the abuse and trauma is just coincidental.”

“While your thoughts on the matter are, as ever, enlightening, today is just the introduction to this segment of the course. Perhaps you could hold off for a while longer while I familiarize everyone else with the subject matter?”

“Sure, Harry,” Root grinned at the perturbed look on his face. If he didn’t want to call her by her _real_ name, that was just fine by her. Two could play that game. “I just think it’s a ridiculous idea to think that one set of circumstances alone could be responsible for the way we’re hardwired. It’s far more likely to be a combination of things, don’t you think?”

And just like that, she could see the argument rising in him and she sat back with a satisfied grin, knowing that this argument she’d orchestrated would take a while.

~ ~ ~

Sameen groaned when Root went off on another one of her tangents, effectively derailing the class for the hour _again_. At first, she’d found it pretty amusing to watch the hot pain in her ass annoy the hell out of their stuffy professor, but now it was getting to be a real problem.

She’d only gotten a C on her last exam and her course grade was dangerously slipping close to a B, last she checked. Apparently “Harry” was a strict grader and didn’t intend to account for Root’s constant interruptions keeping him from actually teaching the material.

And while she’d been willing to put up with Root’s antics as far as sitting in front of her and tricking her name out of her went, no one fucked with her grades and got away with it. She resolved to have a talk with the brunette after class and smiled grimly at the thought. Root might be taller than her, but she'd probably make the mistake of thinking that was an advantage. It wasn't. Sameen had spent extensive time training for just such an opponent and even though the other girl might have a foot on her, she was confident that she could still kick her ass if needed.

~ ~ ~

Class wasn’t over soon enough for Root or Sameen, though the latter certainly looked as perky as ever as she came out of the classroom and nearly collided with Sameen, who roughly tugged her into a nearby corner, mostly hidden from view. “Well, kiss kiss to you too, sweetie,” she purred even as she had to grab onto Shaw’s arms to catch her balance—and what muscular arms they were, she couldn’t help but think distractedly.

“Shut up,” Shaw growled, looking as pissed as Root had ever seen her and making Root lick her lips as her body responded to the rage. But oops, Sameen was still talking and Root tried to force her traitorous brain to pay attention as she realized that she hadn’t let go of Sameen’s arms yet and she hadn’t seemed to have noticed.

“--and I am not going to fail this course because of you,” Sameen hissed, growing angrier at the sight of a reaction from Root. Well, that wasn’t quite true; Root’s pupils were dilated, her cheeks flushed and her chest was heaving as though she was breathing heavily. She rolled her eyes as she realized that Root was getting _turned on_ by getting threatened by her.

That was just great. The most annoying person in the world had decided that she liked annoying her and she couldn’t even intimidate her into stopping because Root _liked_ being intimidated.

Of course, the idea did present some possibilities that made her pause, taking in the sight Root made with her hands still clutching at her arms and looking hopelessly turned on. Suddenly her plan to punch Root right in her smug face flew right out of her head as she watched Root’s smile turn smug.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” she muttered, uncaring about the setting as she pulled Root closer and crashed their lips together in a kiss that was tongues and teeth and a sheer battle of will until someone pointedly cleared their throats behind them.

“Need I remind you that you’re in a school setting?” Professor Finch said stiffly, giving them a pointed look as Bear whined. Sameen grinned, thoroughly unconcerned about being caught as she bent down to scratch behind Bear’s ears before smirking at Finch, who turned to Root next.

“As for you, Ms. Groves, we are in sore need of a conversation about your tactics to try to take over my class for yourself.”

“Her name is Root,” Sameen interrupted, giving him a glare before turning her back to him and pulling Root along as she started to head to her room, leaving a gaping Finch and a whining Bear (she internally promised to sneak him more treats next time to make up for it) in their wake.

“Aww, sweetie, you might make a girl think you care,” Root gushed, grinning when Sameen shot her another glare.

“Shut-up, Root.”

“I’m just saying, we’ve only spoken what, twice? And you remembered my name _and_ defended my honor,” she grinned. “How chivalrous of you.”

“You’re annoying enough to be memorable, that’s all,” Sameen groused, letting go of Root in an effort to make her shut up and quickening her pace as though trying to leave her behind. (Which she was, she told herself firmly. She certainly wasn’t going to take Root back to her room and show her once and for all who was boss.)

But Root wasn’t giving up that easily and she fell into step beside her, giving her a shit-eating grin. “Just keep telling yourself that, sweetie. Ooh! We could be study buddies with benefits if you’re worried about failing,” she suggested brightly.

“First thing I’m doing is gagging you,” Sameen muttered, groaning when Root’s entire face lit up.

“I thought you’d never ask, Sameen.”

~ FIN

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to note here the wonders of writing. I had no intentions of the professor being canon and then I wrote a few of his lines and went--well, that's Finch I'm writing so I went with it. heh. Funny how these characters will do that! 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought and if you'd like to see a continuation!


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